Stephescope's wedding!

My dear dear sister blackham/roomie/best friend Stephanie Stephescope sunshine Kjiersten Blackham got married to her utmost homie this summer, a few months before me. 

His name is Connor Ray Wright, and i like him, too. 

I was thrilled for these two. 

I got to be with her for almost the entirety of their dating/engagement, and their story is beautiful. I love watching people fight for each other, and figure things out even when it's hard. 

There were a lot of tears, sad, and happy, over Connor. 

From Stephanie, AND me and soph. 

In the end, everything worked out perfectly for them, and i was so proud of them for making it to the temple and making it in general! they are wonderful examples!

and i got to see mi pequna Sophita again!

Karl and i took selfies, obviously. 

hi, he is so handsome.

whata baaaaaaaabe. 

Our old roommate Logan (WE ARE TWINS IN THIS PICTURE, LOGAN) came, too! So fun to be reunited!

yayayaya

June - Sports Camps

This summer i returned my dear Sports Camps, this time as a Dorm Counselor, which meant a lot more responsibility but also a lot more agency, which i appreciated. 

This was the first check-in of camp. just me an mah homie Cosmo, chillin. 

newly engaged, my phone was full of pictures like this:

Our first field games! First time blowing up Zorb balls (we were all siling because we had no idea what we were about to do, or that we'd be doing it for the next 8 weeks.)

I never get tired of these mountains. 

Crocs fo lyf3

the campers always went NUTS over these things. They didn't realize how long it took to inflate them all and set them up. It was worth it to see everyone having such a blast, but that didn't make the prep any easier. 

the devil's work. 

at Sports Camps, i climb into things. 

last year:

tuesday mornign rolled around, and i had a lot of dirty laundry that i wanted to clean. Downstairs in the dorms there are a ton of washers and dryers. 

"no worries!" I thought. "I'll clean them here."

wrong. 

they wouldn't take my debit card, or my Sports camp ID thang. But i had an armful of dirty clothes that i'd already poured detergent onto. 

i turned, discouraged to the door. 

BUT LO, AND BEHOLD, THERE WAS A SINK. 

so i filled one side with hot water and set to work. then i drained that side as i rinsed each piece in the empty side with cold water. then i rinsed them again in the old hot side. then i wrung them out one by one and laid them on a plastic bag on the floor. 

...

but then i realized that i had an armful of soaking wet clothes, and no way to dry them. I went back to my room, thanked the high heavens that i didn't have a roommate that week, and draped my wet clothes all over. ALL over. 

I'm glad i took a picture of the clothes' pile, because 'd almost forgotten about it all. 

The first Wednesday came, and Wednesday at sports Camps means SIX PEAKS!!! (a water park actually named 7 peaks) there was absolutely no sign of rain, so i was pumped. 

I went early to help rachel set up the literal hundred of pizza boxes. 

Once they were empty, 

I arranged them into a little text for Karlitos :)

After this, I had an accident on a slide and ended up with a giant gash in my left leg after nothing short of a miracle which kept my life. 

I'll make that a separate post. 

This is me the first Friday morning of camps:

exhausted/fulfilled. couldn't believe one week was already down!

We (The DCs) spent a lot of time in the emergency room with campers who'd gotten hurt. which also meant we spent a lot of time getting to know each other in waiting rooms. 

that's how Erin, Amber, and I became so close!

I continued to send pictures of heart shaped things to Karl.

white light makes me happy. 

So do the scriptures. 

one of the DC duties is watching campers' bags while they eat, since bags aren't allowed in the Cannon Center. i wrote in my journal a lot, and read books. 

I had a fixation with shadows this summer

I like to make memes. I think they're funny, and i like to think that I'M funny, and this gives me a chance to show that off. 

I posted this picture on the Sports Camps counselors Facebook page:

ONLY BECAUSE IT IS THE TRUEST THING I'VE EVER SAID IN MY LIFE. 

and because Zorb balls. those nasty things. #Thedevil'swork

our head counselors aka my bosses minus Derek aka some pretty exceptional humans, doin' business. 

I think i already posted this picture. oh well. I like Karl and i would send him cheesy things like this all da thyme. 

litter after a movie night in the Tanner building. tsk tsk tsk. preteens these days. No respect for other people's property!

*shakes cane angry at children*

Okay this was adorable. 

So every day i would walk to the Sports Medicine people for each of the sports i was 'over' for the week and ask them what i could do for them that day. 99.9% of the time the answer was an unenthusiaastic "we're good" accompanied by an eye roll.

i would flash a smile and thank them for their time while mind-screaming:

I AM CAPABLE THANK YOU VERY MUCH. DON'T TREAT ME LIKE AN INCOMPETENT HUMAN. I KNOW STUFF.

One day i was walking to a sports medicine person and i saw a group of boys huddled around a bush along the side walk. 

sketchy. 

so naturally i go over there, hoping to bust them.

"Hey guys, what's going on?"

There were 2 or 3 older boys, and half a dozen very young boys. like mayyyyybe 10 years old. one of the young boys turned to me, worried, and said, "please don't move it, we were just trying to cover up so no one bothered it."

???

One of the older boys said, "it's okay guys, you can go to practice, i'll explain everything." and all the other boys nodded at the ground (?) and walked away, looking resolved or something. proud maybe? too strong. pleased. whatever. 

i was confused and a little annoyed that the older boys told all the others to leave. 

usurper. 

but then this boy proceeded to tell me that he and his friends had come up on a scene much like the one i saw. but it was just the little boys, huddled around a bush. the older boys asked the little boys what was going on, and they parted, to show the older boys a dead bird laying on the ground. 

"We found it here, and we don't want anyone to hurt it, so we're just standing around it until everyone is past an at practice." they told the older boys. The older boys said they'd help. They also felt a little weirded out by the dead bird, so they suggested a burial. 

All the boys got a handful of dirt from a DIFFERENT patch of ground and then poured it over the bird. And then they waited for everyone to pass by. 

enter me. 

okay, so maybe that's weird. 

the bird part is definitely weird. 

but i thought it was cute that the older boys were helping the little boys. 

__________________

Dear Karl, let's have a bunch of sons and let's teach them to be really compassionate like you are, so that they will protect younger kids like these boys. okay thanks, bye. 

__________________

the boys:

the bird mound:

(ps i tracked down some grounds-keeping people and told them about the bird so they could dispose of it safely. bird diseases. gross.)

In other news:

I loved walking on this bit of path every day. this little valley of trees is nostalgic to me.

DC life is taking a shower with the hospital radio in the bathroom because you're still on duty and you don't want to miss a hospital call.

Erin and I Tron-ing. I don't remember why we did this but i liked the picture, and i like her, so i'm posting it. 

hi, Bambi. NBD. 

JEDI!!!!!!!!

This boy was one of my homies from my first week ever last year. He was one of Dylan Shawhan's boys, and he inspired the name "The Jedi Council" He was also like, THE boy. you know the kind. all the girls were over him. 

I felt pretty exclusive having INSANE, LOUD, GIANT dance parties under the stadium every week with over a thousand people. 

but in case you were wondering, yes, dances are a lot less fun when you're engaged and yo man isn't there. dances last summer were awesome because it was prime show-yo-real-self time. 

didn't need to get into crazy melissa mode this year. 

ah, swig. your soda is mediocre, but your cookies are supreme. 

maybe it's just that i feel lukewarm about any soda and white hot about all cookies. 

meh. 

I've heard it both ways. 

Sports Camps in June were SOOOOOOO nostlagic for me. everything reminded me of last summer. last golden, golden, summer, and all my friends and all my campers and all the times i felt the spirit and prayed so hard to know what to do and felt God's voice in my heart guiding me along. 

Last summer is special. 

Last summer is sacred to me. 

I got to feel tiny glimpses of that in June, but i've been learning how to appreciate the good old days without letting the current ones losing meaning. 

I'm grateful for that, because THIS summer was very special, too. 

I'm still finding out a lot of little things about it that make it even more wonderful. like the collection of little things in this post. 

my life has many great things that are big; my faith, my husband, my family, my job, my education.

But my days in life have many great things that are little. 

I am sad when i miss them. 

I'll try to share some more with you soon. 

Cornmeal: A Near-death experience

On the first week of Sports Camps, at 7 Peaks water parks after we'd served dinner to the campers, I went with some of the other DCs into the park to race on the slides. Which was awesome. BUT THEN, we decided to do this one slide that goes straight out, and then straight down. 

no biggie. 

I'd done it before, no problem. I like the thrill. 

this time, i went on a sliding mat. 

Which i'd done before last year, and had no problem with. 

My turn on the slide came, so i laid down in the entrance to the tunnel head first on my mat. I gripped the handles tightly, and when the lifeguard signaled to me, i wiggled the mat a little to get going. I knew not to push off hard with my feet, because i'd done that before and i went too fast, it scared me. 

"I'll be safe if i just wiggle forward" i thought. 

so i did. 

but then i was going very very fast through the tunnel, and my body started to lift up off the mat toward the ceiling of the tunnel. When the tunnel opened into the 120 degree drop, my body flew into the air.

This sounds lame, but honestly everything screeched into slow motion.

I saw the slide in front of me get further away. 

 i was holding my mat so tightly my knucles were white. The mat was somehow suctioned to the slide or something, because it never came up off the slide like my body did. I was gripping the handles, but my arms were fully extended. My body was parallel to my mat, but i was two feet above it in the air. 

As i gained speed, I felt my body starting to fall back toward the mat again, but something was wrong. I had shifted. My legs had flung over me, and the momentum had almost completely flipped me onto my back in the air. I was two feet above the slide, and from my waist down, i was over the edge.

Time literally felt like it was stopped. I saw in my mind's eye, my body falling back toward the mat, but my waist hitting the edge of the slide, flipping me backward, hurtling a hundred feet to a cement death. 

I know i didn't make any sound but i felt my heart cry out, "NO! I cannot die. I have to finish Sports Camps, I have to marry Karl, i have to work at Cinnamon Tree, i have finish school, i have to be a mother, I will not die. OH please, God, i cannot die. Please oh please i cannot die."

 I felt, still in painful slow motion, my body getting closer to the slide, half of me still off course. I felt like i was screaming as i plummeted, hoping, praying, willing myself to move. I had no control over my legs. I couldn't flip them back over. I was going to fall on the edge and flip over the side to my death. 

You've likely heard the phrase, "my life flashed before my eyes". I had, and i'd scoffed at it. 

how cliche. 

But, barreling through the air down that slide, at paralyzing speed and somehow simultaneously halted in mid-air, my life flashed before my eyes. 

I remembered many precious things, and i didn't wonder how anything would work out when i got to heaven, or how the world would be without me, i just felt a very sudden peace. I remember physically blinking, and my vision becoming so bright that i could barely make out the slide. 

All of this probably took one entire second of real time, but it felt like whole minutes had passed, me in the air, my life held by a string. 

I remember time seeming to rewind a bit, seeing myself re-enter the slide in double time. All at once i was conscious of a twirling sensation, a thudding feeling as my body fell perfectly back onto my mat, and then a very sharp pain in my left leg. 

Suddenly i was bumping to a stop at the bottom of the slide. I sputtered out a mouthful of water and shakily pushed myself up. 

As soon as i stood, my left leg buckled. I winced and looked down to see a giant gash in my leg. 

When i had fallen back onto my mat, my body had miraculously realigned itself into place, except for my left leg, which had fallen last second onto the edge of the slide. My leg, just above my knee, slid on the side of the slide for the rest of the way, burning through my outer skin straight to the fleshy part of my leg. The burn had been so sudden and hot, that it cauterized itself. 

There was no blood, and the water hardly stung at all. 

I was left with a 1/4" deep gash in my leg, showing straight through to the flesh. 

But i had my life. 

I shook my head quickly, trying to get back to reality. I looked up to see several of my friends waiting for me at the end of the slide, with gaping mouths. They didn't speak for a moment, but when they did, they incredulously exclaimed, "You were literally out of the slide! I really thought you were going to flip over the edge! How are you alive?!"

I tried to chuckle it off. I hate people doting on me. 

We all walked to the wave pool but i didn't stay, i walked back to the pavilion to get some Neosporin. 

I was in such a daze, i don't remember applying any or taking any picture but i must have, because here it is below. Grainy, but real.

It's a little gross. 

don't look if you're squeamish. 

the next dozen pictures are of the cut, 

so feel free to skip ahead.

.....

...

I also must have sent these pictures to Karl while i was out of it, because when i got back to campus i had about 50,000 texts and calls from him wanting to know what happened and if i was alright. 

That night, after i showered, and re-applied medicine:

the next morning (Day 2):

Day 4:

Day 5

Day 6:

around 10 days, the sides started creeping toward each other again, closing the deepest parts, which left bright pink shiny skin over the top. the wider shallower part stayed open longer which i thought was interesting. It began to develop a film of mucusy liquid, which i looked up. It sounded normal for burns, and WebMD encouraged me not to wipe it off too much, as it was my body's neosporin so to speak. So i cleaned it once a day, but during the day sometimes it would dry, forming a layer of little crusties liek the kind in your eye when you wake up, but filling my wound. gross. one fo the other DCs observed that it looked like Cornmeal. 

from then on, the cut, and now even the scar, are affectionately referred to as "Corn Meal" by those most frequently surrounding me during the healing of this cut. AKA the DCs and Karl. 

Day 12:

About 2 weeks in, Karl bought me these super heavy duty band aids. and they worked SO WELL. the wound started closing dramatically, but the band aids were so sticky that my skin ripped off at the corners of the band aids. ow. 

Day 15:

Day 16:

Day 17: 

see what i mean? closing dramatically. 

BLAH

I tried to joke about it. When people asked me, i played off the story like it was funny. I laughed. 

but it hurt a lot. 

And it was scary. 

I thought i would die. 

I really thought i would die. 

But i didn't. something pulled me back onto that slide. 

It was a genuine miracle. 

You'd better believe hat that night, and every night after, i prayed with my whole heart in gratitude for my life. You'd better believe that i took things more seriously after that day. 

It changed me. 

made me more sincere and honest. 

I opened up. 

I stopped caring about what other people thought. 

That slide made me better. 

It's hard to explain, but i'm grateful for that experience, because it's helped me appreciate actually living my life. Truly experiencing people. 

so yeah.

That's all concerning cornmeal in June. 

i'll show you the scar later.